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Whilst working collaboratively with the internal product team, QBE’s legal department has recently been responsible for developing and embedding the legal framework necessary for the acquisition and integration of the Insurance Box telematics business and company structure. ‘This was a significant aide in ensuring QBE was well-placed to effectively integrate the business and reap the reputational benefit from an innovative product that helps encourage and financially reward customers for safe driving,’ says Pita Williams, QBE’s general counsel. ‘We’re constantly evolving and striving to empower the business with legal knowledge to help them carry out their projects. Whatever the situation, we strive to ensure we work together with the business for the greater good,’ she adds. QBE’s in-house legal team also undertakes all large internal transactions, sometimes alone, sometimes with the assistance from external lawyers, with a recent example including the sale of the company’s insurance portfolios and the renewal of various longstanding strategic agreements. In parallel, the team regularly assists the business in interpreting the business impact of bills, acts and regulations and creates procedures and communications for dealing with government initiatives, such as the removal and then the recent re-introduction of The Emergency Services Levy in New South Wales. To develop a depth of knowledge of QBE’s business among the team and to foster a culture of knowledge sharing, a business partnership initiative has recently been established, whereby lawyers from the legal team have been placed into other business units and legally qualified business staff have been placed into the legal team on short term secondments. The result has been ‘increased knowledge sharing across the team’ Williams says. ‘We are now able to work more closely with the business and to better understand their objectives and challenges, help achieve their goals.’ In addition, the team has actively collaborated via “Global Legal Practice Groups” enabling QBE to ‘take advantage of economies of scale and negotiate better commercial deals on a global basis’. According to Williams, ‘this has broadened the expertise of our local and overseas lawyers, improved awareness of global strategies, increased opportunities for secondment and streamlined global templates to consistently apply company policies and legal requirements across the globe whilst working closely with global procurement teams to support global business goals’.